Touche' Cliche'

I want to revisit the topic this blog broached back in March.  If you didn’t read that one, you can find it at http://primepaintball.blogspot.com/2016_03_01_archive.html

In that one, we discussed a mental approach to the game.  After a few conversations recently and a few articles I have read as of late, this conversation is far from over.

Most players and coaches in our sport, especially at the divisional level, don't emphasize  the mental approach to our game as much as they probably should.  The physicality of the game, the fundamentals of our sport, are certainly relevant and needed, but ultimately, if you don't know what to do, when, and why, I don't care how good your snap is, chances are, you will get outworked.  I would imagine most if not all of the players on Impact or Dynasty still get out there and drill.  However, I bet that the members of these two teams “practice” the mental aspect of the game more than most.  And it is THIS aspect, THIS approach to the game that, in my humble opinion, separates the greats from the “pretty goods”.  Coaches, take note because, whereas we addressed what the player needs to bring to the party in our March blog post, this one is firmly directly at you and what you can bring to their mentality.

And that is why paintball is like the cherry blossom...

How many times have you heard/said this one, “You are overthinking it!”?  I know I am certainly guilty of using that one and not just on players and teammates but myself.  I am sure we would all agree that our thoughts influence our behavior and vice versa, yes?  How many times have you looked at a player and attributed their lackluster performance to their “overthinking”?  What about, “Your making it more complicated than it is.”? Come on… admit it.  Or how about, “Just play paintball!” 

Yeah, you’re guilty.

We use comments and terms like this all the time, right?  Perhaps we think it motivates a player or is somehow teaching them something.  As if we were paintball's greatest philosopher with our simplistic statements being equivalent to  Plato's Republic. And what really happens when we do this? What are we really saying? Let's face it, we aren't really saying anything. I have been reading some great books and articles on Sports Psychology and I am beginning to see a pattern.  Don’t get me wrong, full disclosure here, but I have read books on child birth too but that didn’t make me an expert…that being said, I have been around paintball and paintball teams for awhile and played sports my whole life.  Couple that with being around some of the greatest minds in the game, you begin to pick up on a thing or two.

Let me ask you something and answer this honestly.  Let’s pretend we were at practice together or an event and you just struggled during a point where you lost or made a mistake which ended up costing the point.  I walk up to you and say, “Stop thinking so hard man!  Just play paintball.  Jeez!” 

Discussing what needs to happen when, where and why

What does that even mean???!!  Chances are, I elicited one of 3 reactions from you; A. You become motivated and full of determination and focus and will now go out and play your heart out because these words somehow magically tapped into your visceral self! HULK SMASH!  Perhaps B. You’re a millennial who now needs a safe space or safe zone or whatever trigger word protection you are calling it these days so you crawl up within yourself and ask to be sat because, God forbid, someone depends on you for production.  Or more than likely C. You think I should go jump in the nearest lake creating resentment between you and I and now your mind has another issue to contend with and you are anything but focused on the task at hand.  How are you as a player supposed to translate what I said into action and what am I really trying to say to you?  Are you relaxed now?  Are you really going to “stop thinking” as it were?  Doubtful.

I have an idea, let’s TALK about that funny little pinko commie Bernie Sanders.  We are going to talk about him, how we feel about him, and give our opinions about his political policies.  But now, while we do this, don’t THINK about him. . . Come on now, don’t let the image of that goofy cartoon of a man creep into your thoughts. . . Don’t think about Bernie Sanders!

Yep...

What’s the first thing that just popped into your head?  You probably thought of that ridiculous human muppet who thinks Cuba’s economy is what we need here in the good ol' US of A, amiright?  More than likely.  See how this may be an issue?  I am asking you not to think about something I am SPEAKING to you about!  In other words, I tell you to stop thinking about it and just play paintball, what are you inclined to do?  Probably think about it… and try something that I had no intention of you trying on the field.

Granted, this is but one aspect, one simple and narrow example.  Still, ask yourself, did we make them better and help them focus on the task at hand?  Did we add anything meaningful or productive to our player?  Did we assist their mental approach to the game or did we just add another obstacle to their learning process?

 My next question is, how many times have you told yourself NOT to do something but then you go out and do the exact thing you told yourself not to do?  “I better not miss my runner on the break!” or “I better trade with my guy at the W” only to miss the guy or not trade?  "The guys will think I suck if I don't do this right!"  "The coach is going to be pissed if I don't stay alive this point".  Uh-huh... psych yourself much?  Did the coach's insightful and definitive "say something but not really" speech help?  Doesn't sound like it.

It boils down to this. . . for every fundamental drill you do, you better find a mental equivalent.  Coaches (and players) need to emphasize this to the nth degree (that means a lot for those of you wondering what an nth is).  We must learn to think with purpose . . . deliberate and effective purpose.  When we do this, we will gain confidence in our actions.  When we gain confidence, we can maximize our potential in action.  We will become competent.  And competency is the first step to greatness.  This needs to be the goal for all practices leading to an event.  We need to know how to help them LEARN... and in some cases, UNLEARN (that is a different blog altogether).  We must choose our comments, statements, questions, and thoughts carefully so that we elicit the appropriate and desired response.

Understanding and documenting game play

Now, we have talked about the mental aspect of PERFORMANCE but just as important is the actual mental aspect of the GAME.  Tournament paintball is not just 5 guys with paintball guns who go out on the field.  You’re a front player, he’s a back player, and we will all go here and there and yonder. BAM!  Good luck!  

Absolutely not. 

There is a flow to this game.  There are things that need to happen when executing a game plan.  There are things that need to happen when and if the game plan is broke or countered.  There are things that need to happen and then there are things that will go wrong.  It is a chess match.  Coaches will make mistakes with the wrong call/approach but a player still has to execute/produce.  Questions we need to ask ourselves; what’s our goal on the snake side, the middle and/or the dorito side?  What is the first, second, third goals of our D side attack?  If A then B?  Or if A then C?  How do we know if it’s B or C?  THAT is the mental part of the game that lower divisional teams seem to miss.  I have said this several times over the past few years, “Just because a bunker is forward, does not mean it is the right bunker at the time.”

Recognizing the flow of the game

Teams, players and coaches (especially coaches) need to realize that a game plan is NOT just the breakout.  These five guys will each go here on the break.  Okay . . . Why?  What is the purpose of that particular break’s configuration?  Where are we putting our guns on the break and why?  Why are we putting a player here?  What is his job/goal from that point on?  The game plan is what is supposed to happen AFTER the break.

We will revisit this topic regarding the mental aspect of our sport in next months’ blog.  I hope to emphasize something I have been reading about called the “4 C’s” of competition.  Until then…

Be water my friends,

Michael Bianca

Gun Fu Episode #2

Abraham Lincoln said, “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.”  This certainly appears the case regarding our next Gun Fu sifu.  I’ve known this gentleman for a little over 5 years now and never once during that time doubted his resolve.  When he made the jump from divisional play to professional team Omaha Vicious, I was confident he would make the best of it.  And he did, eventually ranking 2^nd best player in the league when the PSP was keeping stats during the 2014 season.  He eventually fell to 6^th after World Cup but man, what a run.

Matt Sossoman’s journey to the pro ranks began when he was 10 years old in the back yard of a friend’s house shooting a phantom pump.  The friend’s older brother had an automag classic which terrified the Soss but didn’t stop him from falling in love with the game.

Glamour Shot Soss

However, it was in the locker room for a high school football try out that led Matt to pursue paintball in full capacity.  And it was ultimately due to a mistake.  He had left a form stating that he had passed his physical at home.  The coach, a hardliner for rules and regualtions, was adamant that you must have the form in order to try out.  This led Matt to realize how much he loved playing paintball as opposed to football.  BAM!  Paintball received a new force to be reckoned with as he entered his first 3 man tournament the following week.

As paintball evolved over the years, one thing that never changed was Matt’s drive to win and his love of winning.  “Winning is fun . . .” he will tell you matter of factly.  So much so that he did just that his first time out, winning that 3 man tournament with his team.  When asked what he enjoys most about our sport, sure enough, you see it in his answer: “I’ve had a few different thoughts about it over the years . . . from shooting people, bunkering people, playing with friends, creating friends, traveling, etc. but nothing can compare to winning.”

Champion Soss with Kung Fu grip

The Soss Man realized quickly that in order to obtain the level of expertise it requires to be consistently competitive, you have to get out there and get after it. “I feel I excelled at gun skills.  I spent hours and hours by myself working on laning, running and gunning, and snap shooting.”

That isn’t to say there weren’t obstacles.  “I got over looked a lot growing up because I wasn’t the skinny guy on the team running to the snake off break or screaming down the D-side of the field.  My biggest issue was my body. I could play and play and play but I wasn’t fast, I couldn’t run for miles, but I tried my hardest.” 

When asked how he overcame this, once again in that matter of fact manner, he said, “I overcame it in two ways, eating better and out working everyone else.  If you are out working everyone else it doesn’t matter what you are or look like, you will be better.”

Big Head Soss from his Skill School

The road to professional paintball was paved with the corpses of several teams, none of which Matt wanted to die.  “I never wanted to change teams as many times as I did but every time things were going well the owner would pull the plug on the team. There was Goldrush, Tainted, Circus Runaways, Gridlock, Cross eyed paintball, Raiden, New Jersey Jesters and then Vicious.  The route to Vicious wasn’t an easy road, I had worked my whole life for this chance to obtain my first goal of playing pro.  I saw they were having tryouts on PBNation which I actually missed the first set of them.  I talked to Jake Topping (Team Manager) and set up a tryout for when the team went to Kick’n indoor park in Missouri.  I bought a plane ticket, rented a car, got a hotel room and paid for my tryout and the rest has been amazing history.  There is hands down no better two team owners in paintball than Carl and Karen Bortol.”

(Side note, I am going to argue with that last statement.  As much as I like the Bortols, there is no better team owners than Prime’s very own McGowan family…. Just saying)

Matt won’t mince words when it comes to what he thinks most new/up and coming players struggle with and I couldn’t agree with him more.  “Lack of drills in their preparation for events.  Everyone really loves playing games and games and more games.  But I can take four hours to run 4 drills and get 100% more out of my practice than someone that just plays points all the time.”  Word.

Run n Gun Soss

So, what is Matt’s favorite drill to run and why?  “Snap shooting.  I love to start out very simple in spots that are close then move back until I am shooting corner to corner.  I am huge on making things hard on myself.   So I get three shots to hit a target, if I don’t hit the target in one of those 3 shots I will do 5-10 push-ups depending on difficulty of the drill.  The best thing about snap shooting is that you can make it as hard as you want or as easy.  Never move on from a shot until you have mastered it.” 

I think that last sentence says a lot about Matt.

Matt Sossoman, like many of the Pros/Sifus we will interview here in Prime’s Dojo, has his own website which is a great way to learn the sport of paintball.

Got paint Soss?

“As a lot of people know I have retired from playing in 2014 with Vicious.  It has really given me more of an opportunity to grow my Skills School.  I started my Skills School out of what I thought was a necessity. There were so many teams around my area with no guidance on their practices or skills.  There aren’t many other sports that you can work with a pro for a few hours and take what they have to offer and immediately get better.   I thought back to when I learned to play. I would have loved a guy that would take the time to help me but I learned by getting shot 20 times with unlimited rate of fire.  I now coach 2 teams on a regular basis as well going to Las Vegas to coach Pr1me in division 2.   If anyone wants to check out my Skill’s School Facebook page you can search Matt Sossoman Skill School or check out this link.  https://www.facebook.com/MattSossomanSkillSchool/

Soss and yours truly be creeped on by 5 case himself

Now, have a look at a short video below showing a quick demonstration of one of Matt’s favorite drills.  I promise the production on these will get better... when I have the time to really put into them.

 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yaQa5aWWnkY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

PS.  Thank you to Matt for his guidance at the 2011 World Cup as well as this season’s opener for the NXL in Las Vegas!

The Problem Is Not the Problem

There is a topic I have seen popping up now and again on several paintball forums I frequent.  I have stayed out of responding for the most part because I figured someone out there in the vast expanse that is the internet would have the right words at the right time for the person inquiring.    The topic, in some shape or form, has dealt with discovering the right mental fortitude for paintball.  “How can I overcome this…” or “What do you feel is the best way too gain confidence in…”  These questions appear to be more frequent than before.  It reminds me of a quote from Socrates: “Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.”  Good stuff.  But it wasn’t until I saw one or two inquiries regarding these topics from older individuals that made me decide to write this particular blog.  Conventional wisdom states that older athletes should already know the path to success, right?  Not necessarily true and it never hurts to be reminded.  I believe we have touched on this topic a few times before but it never hurts to revisit.  Especially with the new NXL season just a few days away. 

We all know the age old sayings “Practice makes perfect” and “it’s 90% mental”.  There is good reason why these sayings are repeated generation after generation, it’s because they are true.

Practice those skills... but don't underestimate the power of hair.

How a person views and thinks about competition is very important in regards to how they will approach their practice, performance and results. All of these things must be in sync just as the mind and body must be in sync if one expects to do well.  If your mind and body are in sync then you are no doubt performing at your peak.  So let’s think about that for a moment.  Why would you not train both mind and body?  The body is easy.  It’s the mind that gets you.  So let’s discuss it.

You have read on this blog before that excuses such as “The ref made a bad call” or “it was raining and muddy”, etc. are factors beyond your control.  But you have also read here that, what are you doing on YOUR end when it comes to things you CAN control?  How hard are you working to address strengths and weaknesses in your game, in your team’s game?

How many times have you heard someone say, “Just wasn’t our day” or “we couldn’t get into a rhythm”?  If you have played competitive paintball for longer than an hour, you have heard it at least 8,000 times.  What people are really saying and don’t even realize it is, “The other player/team is better than me/us because they worked harder and found the balance of their physical and mental game”.  In other words, you got outworked.  Nothing to be ashamed of… but take note.

One thing I have prided myself on (and should probably stop) are my pep talks before a game or a practice.  They are usually quite violent and wrought with disturbing adjectives and descriptions of what we will do to the day, the other team, what have you.   

How I imagine my guys will feel after my pep talk

However, these pep talks don’t instantly make my guys into the greatest paintball team on the field that day.  The idea/goal is to put them in a positive mind set, one of a team.  We control our destiny and we will not be denied (blood, gore, filth and farth!).  However, the fact of the matter is, developing the right mental attitude started way back before the first practice.  The right attitude is just as important as the right technique in a gunfight or any competition for that matter.  You have to train your brain. . .

For those of you who have been posting on those forums I mentioned earlier (hopefully you are reading this) about preparing for an event or preparing your team for an event - you need to start well before the event.  Ask yourself, what do I want to achieve?  Don’t go weak or simplistic and simply say, “I want to win!”  How do you want to win?  Set definitive goals at different levels.  Get specific.  This can focus you on specific tasks.  This will then help you develop a path to reaching your desired outcome as it will point the way on what needs to be done in order to accomplish each goal. Once you understand and recognize these steps, you can begin working on them.  It will become quite clear how much time will be required to reach them, too.

Here’s the thing. . . If you are already doubting yourself, either quit and do something else or get in the game for real.  You either want it or you don’t.  There CANNOT be an in-between.  If you are serious about being competitive, then get after it. Believe in yourself.  Believe you can do it.  Leave no room for doubt. The moment doubt enters, it will seep and fester and will detract from the goal.  Have no doubt because there is no doubt.  If you don’t believe you have what it takes, then you don’t.

This isn’t to say that if you don’t feel confident, it can’t be developed or that your doubt can’t be overcome.  It can.  Most people are naturally skeptic and often times that translates into their very own abilities.  That’s okay.  Taking the doubt in one’s head and beating it into submission is exactly what we are talking about here.  Just like the physical discipline it takes to get your body strong, there has to be the discipline it takes to believe in oneself.  Bruce Lee was a master of this.  136 lbs of pure mental and physical tenacity.  The right attitude means having the right mental fortitude and recognizing the belief in oneself.  It goes back to when we spoke about small successes.  Build it and keep building. 

Now, back to the practice makes perfect train of thought.  We all have work to do to get better or to maintain a skill set or to peak.  We have to give 100% EVERY time we train.  If we don’t and just go through the motions, we aren’t accomplishing anything, especially from the mental aspect.  Remember the other old adage, “Practice like you play”?  Again, good words to go by.  Push the envelope in practice so that you know how far you can go come game time.  You want to play a slow layout aggressively?  You better practice it aggressively and do that a lot so come game time, it is second nature.

 

Understand that it’s natural to have some anxiety.  The key to beating it, however, is to focus on the task, not the outcome.  When you get caught up on outcome, you open yourself to reinforce doubt.  Remember, there is no ROOM FOR DOUBT.  There is only getting better.  “It is like a finger point the way to the moon.  Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all the heavenly glory.”

"Don't think! Feeeeeeeeeel..."

For example, when drilling on the break laning, I focus on several different factors: my position on the box based off my teammates planned breakout; how quickly I can get my gun into play and paint downrange; my foot work and mechanics of my draw; where my lanes need to be in relation to the job I am doing, where I am in relation to immediate threats on the break, etc.  If all I focused on was whether or not I hit the guy on the break, I could get discouraged rather quickly.  The guy didn’t break wide… so my lane didn’t shoot him.  But I can have small successes; For example, perhaps my job on the break was to take away the wide runner on the D side.  I bring my lane up but the runner saw the paint and goes short.  I didn’t kill my guy… but then, I didn’t have to as I still accomplished my goal.  Success.  This is why scenario training in paintball is so important.  Play 4 on 2’s or 3 on 2’s.  Practice timed heavy pushes where one team has to win the point in 45 seconds.  By doing these things, you learn to recognize them in real game situations and know what has to be done.  You have created an environment where you know what it takes to succeed and therefore, when confronted with the situation, are therefore comfortable.  There is no “unknowing” or unfamiliar territory.  It is not outside of your experience and therefore not foreign.  There is nothing to fear.

The last thing I want to leave you with this month in regards to the right mental attitude is this – Disappointment and failure to accomplish goals will happen.  It is how you decide you wish to face these defeats that will determine future success.  Losing when you know you put in the work is the worst.  We have all been there, some of us more times than we care to admit.  But you must continue forward.  Some of the biggest names in sports will always tell you about how they learned from their failures.  They didn’t let their losses define them.  They didn’t let those short comings stagnate their drive to improve.  And you shouldn’t either.  Not if you want to get better.  Listen, we will all have a day where things go wrong but if we learn from it, we will be that much better.  Cliché’?  Sure.  Fact?  You bet.

You want to be good, then work hard at improving your mind and body.  You want to be great, then you better strap yourself in and embrace a life of mental and physical tenacity.

Noah Gallaway has the right attitude. What's your excuse?

Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t.  Remember, your mind is the greatest weapon.

Be water my friends.  

PS  ENJOY THE WISE WORDS OF THE MAN HIMSELF IN THE VIDEO BELOW